Solved [SOLVED]Finally! FreeBSD installed! 9.0, that is!

Originally, I tried to install PCBSD 9.0, but the installer kept 'aborting' for some reason, so, it was 'bite the bullet' and bear with installing and setting up FreeBSD 9.0.

It installed successfully, but because I used the make install command for Gnome2, starting at 9:30 EDT, last Thurs, it didn't finish downloading until 3pm Friday. After being advised to just use pkg_add -r, I used that for 'xorg', and, to make a long story short, had Gnome2 working, and booting into it a short while later. Yay!

Motherboard:

Biostar NF61S AM2

AMD64x2, 2GB RAM, Nvidia Geforce 6100 (256 MB), WD SATA2 160 GB HDD, LG DVDRW.

Firefox works and the video with sound is good.

Looks good.

Next tasks:

  • Install Linuxulator
  • Adobe Flashplayer
  • add 'Richard' to the 'wheel' group, so I can 'su' to 'root' from within Xterm on Gnome2.

Commands for this, please?

One thing I note is that pressing Ctrl-Alt-F1 to get to the terminal gives me a long nasty error message (and I don't remember the keys to (hopefully) get back to Gnome, so I end up rebooting, plus, the sound works, but, let's just say, it's good that I'm not dual-booting Windows, or I might be blown out of my chair, if I didn't remember to greatly lower the speaker volume!

I like FreeBSD so far, reminds me of Linux, plus, my old OS/2 Warp3, MSDOS days, and even those old BASIC computers we used to use (still have a few collecting dust, in fact! :p), and, of course UNIX!
 
Great article.Used it to set up Freebsd 9.0!

pkubaj said:

That's the article I was and am still referencing right now for system setup and the few 'minor' problems I'm encountering, ie:
  • Forgot to add 'me' to the 'wheel' group
  • Put 'Blackbox' for the hostname, when it should have been a fully qualified domain name. Will it mess up the system if I change it?
  • When I access "Users And Groups" in Gnome2, the program is blank and hangs. Killing the process is the only way to close it.
  • Blackbox sees and accesses my Windows PCs,but not the other way around,yet pinging either one works fine!
  • Accessing 'Networks' in Gnome2, shows the 'wired connection' as 'not enabled', yet I have network and Internet access! What would happen if I did 'enable' it?
Thanks for the link.
 
Thanks for the handbook link.

I read through some of it yesterday, but will be reading it many times more I'm sure; especially since FreeBSD is somewhat different to Linux!
 
Itproman said:
*Put 'Blackbox' for the hostname,when it should have been a fully qualified domain name.Will it mess up the system if I change it?

I've changed my hostname after the build and it didn't cause a problem. My qualified domain name has to do with what my router assigns me. I just changed the machine name which goes at the front of it.

You can change in /etc/rc.conf as root, then reboot and your machine will go by the new hostname. If you're getting online with it there shouldn't be a problem. I've never used Gnome so I don't know the specifics of it.
 
I tried one too many commands from the Cool Trainer article listed above and toasted the system and had to do a reinstall,only now I can't fathom what I did wrong(the only thing I did different was add myself to the 'wheel' group on install).

Here's what I'm seeing: a)Root can play the video in Firefox,but I can't,but worse than that,things are really slow and when I try to open stuff,after logging in as myself,it either opens really slow,if at all,or I see a message at the bottom of the Gnome screen about 'too many files open' and if I go back to the command line,I see an error msg saying something like : "kern,max files reached(7)."

What's happening and how can I correct this?

Is this because of adding myself to the 'Wheel' group?

I'm not winning.

So far today,I've reinstalled 2x,pkg added gnome2 and xorg,made sure not to select 'power d' and removed myself from the 'wheel' group,but so far root can login fine,but when 'user' tries to log into Gnome2,the pc just accesses the hdd endlessly,so I end up rebooting,so for now,as bad as it is,I have to run as 'root',so I don't make the system unbootable.

I am experienced at Windows and Linux,but new to FreeBSD,so if anyone can help me,Id really appreciate it!
 
1. What videos can't you play in FF? Do you mean that Flash Player doesn't work or Mplayer plugin doesn't work?
2. Increase kern.maxfiles.
 
Itproman said:
Root can play the video in Firefox,but I can't..

*snip*

Is this because of adding myself to the 'Wheel' group?

I'm not winning.

So far today,I've reinstalled 2x,pkg added gnome2 and xorg,made sure not to select 'power d' and removed myself from the 'wheel' group...

You want your user account to be part of the wheel and operator groups.

When you were installing flash did you happen to forget to log out of your root account when you ran this command?

$ nspluginwrapper -v -a -i

I take it you've got a /etc/devfs.conf and a /etc/devfs.rules file, and that you have referenced "devfs_system_ruleset" in /etc/rc.conf?

Don't get discouraged. It's something simple that can be worked out.
 
I have done any of that yet and in trying to install Samba last night,I overlooked a mistake(leaving off the end quote on the path statement) I made in rc.conf and after rebooting the system forced me to either type the shell path,or hit return.I tried to edit the file,but ee was unable to create it,so had to reinstall(good experience expecting for waiting an hour for Gonome2 to download!0...so now,we're good.I didn't add the user to any groups,so I'll have to do that and as I say,this is a default system with: Gnome2,Xorg and Firefox;nothing else has been done yet.

The video I'm referring to is the one about Firefox on the included page.

As for Flashplayer,I still have to successfully download and install the Linux Emulator.I tried,but it refused saying Kload_linux wasn'r running,or something like that.I would've thought you download it,then you invoke that command?

btw:Does the Software Updater in Gnome2 work?Mine doesn't.

Thanks for the words of encouragement.I'll keep at it-I've been doing it for over 20yrs,so might as well keep going! lol
 
"Wipe everything and reinstall" is a bad habit. When that seems like a good idea, spend a few minutes searching on the web instead. This time, all that was needed was to mount the filesystems:
# mount -u /
# mount -a
(The first line is probably not necessary.) Then edit rc.conf and continue.
 
Itproman said:
As for Flashplayer,I still have to successfully download and install the Linux Emulator.I tried,but it refused saying Kload_linux wasn'r running,or something like that.I would've thought you download it,then you invoke that command?

When you install www/nspluginwrapper it automagically installs emulators/linux_base-f10 along with it as a dependency. Just follow the Handbook and you shouldn't have any problems.

Yeah, don't give up. You'll be so pleased with yourself once you do get everything set up that it will have been worth the hassle. :p
 
Trihexagonal said:
I've never used Gnome so I don't know the specifics of it.

What are you using then?

Maybe I should consider it,if it is better.

I used to use KDE on Opensuse for years,but I know a lot of people use lighter desktops,such as LXDE,XFCE,Fluxbox and so on.
 
Itproman said:
What are you using then?

Maybe I should consider it,if it is better.

I use fluxbox and was going to recommend that you give it a try earlier. It's easy to get set up and that way you could mess with Gnome at your leisure without it being so frustrating, knowing you had a working installation to fall back on.

Put this in your ~/xinit.rc file, along with anything else such as xterm you want to start with it:
Code:
xterm &
exec fluxbox

and run:
$ startx

after you log in to get to it. You'll probably want to install /graphics/feh too so you can put up a background. I've got screenshots of my desktops in the Xorg section of the forum.

P.S. If you do try fluxbox you'll have to install your own file manager and the other things that come bundled with Gnome that fluxbox doesn't include with it. You may want to take a look at tazs' minimal FreeBSD desktop HowTo which makes recommendations on things like that.
 
An update: The current state of affairs:

After toasting FreeBSD 9.0 for the 4th time(I created a new user,who could log into Gnome2 fine,I decided I'd do what suggested in another post on here and remove my account(I did it in a terminal window on Gnome2)and try making me as a user again.This completely fried the system,taking all accounts,even root,avahi,gdm and more with it!Nobody could log in).Another experience! lol

After a 5th reinstall,freebsd-update,portsnap,etc,downloading Gnome2,Xorg,making configuration changes as per the Cooltrainer.org article above(I haven't installed the proprietary Nvidia Driver,yet),and NOT installing Firefox,I was up,and I can still log in as a user,so maybe that was the source of the problem,I wonder.Boot into Gnome2 is much faster too.

The 2 problems I have now is:

1)the terrible font!

2)Ports install frustration.ie: today,that would be:tightvnc,vnc,nswrapper...usually getting an apparent install,plus 'command not found" after,or ...'pkg-conf 0.8.9(?) conflicts with pkg-config 0.25 whatever,and when I tried to remove the latter was told that it couldn't be removed and was given a list of packages that depend on it.

I can SSH to the FreeBSD Server,but was hoping to add VNCing to the Gnome Desktop.

Last night I installed Code Blocks ok,though.I plan to teach myself C,then C++,then Java,Perl and Python,and...who knows what else.I know a little programming here and there,plus smatterings of remembered BASIC from way back when.

The good part is,maybe I don't need to bother installing Samba,because I can see my Windows PC and Laptop's folders on the FreeBSD desktop.

I'm winning slowly...I think,but don't quote me on it.It works anyway.
 
Thanks!

Found another one online that came ion handy,also:

pw usermod itproman -G wheel,operator

I'll read those resources,thanks
 
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